The Queen’s College is delighted to announce the pre-election of Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, as its next Provost. He will succeed Dr Claire Craig from 2 August 2025.
Paul says: “I am delighted to have been appointed as next Provost of Queen’s. It is clearly a very special place. It is a huge honour to be entrusted with helping the College through the next few years, supporting its students and Fellows, and managing new challenges. I have spent most of my professional life working with brilliant people in institutions which strive for excellence and to achieve a positive impact in this country. I look forward to doing the same at Queen’s, to becoming part of this community, and to getting to know as many current and former members as possible.”
Paul has been director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies since 2011. He is a columnist for The Times, and is a regular contributor to other broadcast and print media. He is a Visiting Professor in the UCL Policy Lab and at the UCL Department of Economics.
Paul published The Sunday Times bestseller Follow the Money in 2023. He hosts the podcast The IFS Zooms in which attracts up to 100,000 downloads per episode and is co-host of The Expert Factor. A list of his publications can be found here https://ifs.org.uk/people/paul-johnson.
He was for 11 years a member of the UK Climate Change Committee and has served on the council of the ESRC and of the Royal Economic Society. Paul led reviews of pension auto-enrolment and of inflation measurement for the UK government, and of fiscal devolution for the Northern Ireland executive.
Previous roles have included time as Chief Economist at the Department for Education and as Director of Public Spending at HM Treasury, where he also served as Deputy Head of the Government Economic Service.
He was educated at Kings Manor Community College, Keble College, Oxford, and Birkbeck College, London.
He was appointed CBE in the 2018 birthday honours. He holds honorary doctorates from UCL and the universities of Exeter, Sussex, and York. He is an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford.
Paul has four sons now in their twenties. His partner, Nicola, was a Biology teacher in a 6th form college for more than 30 years and is now Head of Careers and HE at a secondary school.
Professor Peter Robbins, Senior Fellow at Queen’s and Chair of the Electoral Body, said: “The Electoral Body is delighted that Paul will be joining Queen’s as its next Provost. Paul brings a wealth of experience, having served as an extremely successful Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies for over a decade. Under Paul’s stewardship, I’m sure that Queen’s will continue to undergo that process of re-invigoration and renewal that is so essential for any college to stay at the top of its game.”
Current Provost Dr Claire Craig said: “I am delighted that Paul will be the next Provost of Queen’s and I look forward to working with him to ensure a smooth transition. I know that everyone in the Queen’s community will warmly welcome and support him as he stewards the College over the coming years. Queen’s dedication to excellence in education and research, and our role as a place that brings together disciplines and generations to listen to each other and to debate, could not be more important than it is now.”
